Home Office

British Nationality: Assessments

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the Life in the UK test.

Lord Murray of Blidworth: There is currently no limit on how many times the Life in the UK test may be re-taken. . The pass rate for applicants from Hong Kong is not available in a publishable format.The Life in the UK test is important for anyone applying to settle permanently in the UK to ensure they have an understanding of the democratic principles underlying British society and aspects of our culture and traditions. We intend to set out our plans to review the Life in the UK handbook as part of wider nationality reforms in the first half of next year.

Asylum: Applications

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those newly appointed as Asylum Decision Makers are adequately trained in order to achieve fair outcomes.

Lord Murray of Blidworth: Asylum Operations remain committed to the training and upskilling of our staff. We have a comprehensive training programme and mentoring framework in place to support this delivered by a dedicated team of senior grade trainers and higher-grade technical experts. This programme maintains case-working expertise and improves decision-maker capability.Recently a comprehensive Training Plan on the provisions introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was developed.

Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee: Disclosure of Information

Baroness Lister of Burtersett: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply byLord Murray of Blidworth on 6 December (HL Deb cols 85 and 88), what factors they will consider in deciding whether to publish the report of the Independent Age Estimation Advisory Committee.

Lord Murray of Blidworth: In December 2021, the Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser set up the independent Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee to provide her with independent scientific and associated ethical advice, recommendations for best practice, and advice relating to issues raised by key stakeholders on the implementation of scientific methods of age assessment.We are continuing to work with the committee regarding their report and considering their advice alongside other sources.

Asylum

Lord Kamall: To ask His Majesty's Government how they determine whether asylumseekers who arrive in the UK without documentation are genuinely from a country not on their list of safe countries.

Lord Murray of Blidworth: The Home Office employs various processes to establish the identities of asyum claimants, in circumstances where it is not sufficiently evidenced in reliable documentation. These processes include checks of all relevant Home Office databases (such as biographic and biometric checks of previous visa applications), biometric checks with partners in the United States and other countries, and – where there are concerns about a person’s claimed origin - robust nationality testing may be carried out during a substantive asylum interview. The checks and the testing employed during interview may be applied to any person claiming asylum, including those from the ‘safe country’ list.If any documents are presented by claimants in support of either their identity or their claim, the reliance to place on them is assessed in the round, alongside these checks and wider evidence in the case, in line with our published guidance: ‘Assessing credibility and refugee status’.

EU Countries: Refugees

Lord Hylton: To ask His Majesty's Government whatsteps they are taking, if any, to support (1) the EU, and (2) countries on the Mediterranean coast, with refugees in that region; and what plans they have, if any, to contribute to the EU’s proposed Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism.

Lord Murray of Blidworth: The EU’s Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism is a temporary measure, open to the EU and Associated States, to which the UK is not a party.We remain open to discussing greater UK-EU cooperation on migration issues. Meanwhile, the UK supports asylum-seekers through other means: between 2016 and September 2022, we resettled more than 26,000 individuals via refugee resettlement schemes – the third highest number in the world after the United States and Canada, and more than any other European country. Our focus will remain on helping people directly from regions of conflict and instability.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Community Development and New Businesses: Urban Areas

Lord Taylor of Warwick: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop community enterprises and entrepreneurship that are based around (1) local, and (2) circular, economies within town centres.

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: His Majesty’s Government recognises the positive contribution of social and community enterprises to society and the economy, including their vital role supporting local areas.DCMS has launched the £4.1 million Social Enterprise Boost Fund to provide targeted support for early-stage social enterprises in disadvantaged places. This new fund will provide capacity-building such as business support, training, networking, one-to-one support and peer learning, and includes £1.5 million of grants for entrepreneurs to kick-start their social enterprises.In addition to the Social Enterprise Boost Fund, DCMS supports the sector through the £900,000 Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Contract Readiness Fund, developed to increase social and community enterprise participation in public service delivery.BEIS provides support through The Start Up Loans Company, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank, providing loans between £500 and £25,000 and pre- and post-application support to new entrepreneurs across the UK, including a year of free business mentoring for successful applicants.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Democratic Republic of Congo: Mining

Lord Alton of Liverpool: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of testimony by Hervé Diakiese Kyungu to a US Congressional hearing on 14 July that 40,000 children, some as young as six years old, are working in mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and what steps they are taking (1) through engagement with technology companies, and (2) via Overseas Development Assistance, to end the practice of child labour.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reply byLord Goldsmith of Richmond Park on 8 December (HL Deb, col 252), what plans they have to hold discussions with major technology companies regarding the use of child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and in particular its role in the extraction of lithium for use in batteries.

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park: Illicit mining in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the use of child labour remains a problem. We regularly raise the issue of child labour in DRC's mining sector both with the DRC government and through multilateral fora such as the Human Rights Council. With the DRC providing 70% of the global supply of cobalt, the UK remains committed to the urgency of addressing child forced and bonded labour in cobalt supply chains. The UK supports the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which aims to improve transparency and governance in the mining sector. We are actively working with international partners and the Government of DRC to encourage responsible private sector activity and to address the governance and human rights issues linked to illicit mining. The UK provided funding to the "Effective Approaches to Ending the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Fragile Contexts", a multi-stakeholder consortium which develops innovative approaches to ending child labour in DRC.

Haiti: Humanitarian Situation

Lord Alton of Liverpool: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Haiti, including reports of hunger and acute food insecurity in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince.

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park: The UK is closely monitoring the worsening security and humanitarian situation in Haiti. We continue to support Haiti through our contributions to agencies such as the United Nations and the World Bank Group who have a strong presence on the ground, and we are engaged in UN Security Council discussions to consider Haiti's request for support. The UK remains committed to supporting a Haitian-led solution focused on the root causes of these issues in order to address the complex challenges in Haiti.

Sudan: Democracy

The Earl of Sandwich: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the latest agreement between the Army and civilian organisations in Sudan, and (2) whether this agreement will support the development of a democratic government in that country.

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park: The Minister for Africa and Development joined the other members of the Quad (KSA, UAE and US) and the Troika (US and Norway), as well as the Friends of Sudan in welcoming the signing of an initial framework agreement on 5 December as an essential first step towards establishing a civilian-led government in Sudan. We urge all Sudanese actors to engage constructively in the ongoing dialogue to secure a democratic transition. The UK supports the role of the tripartite mechanism (UN-AU-IGAD) in facilitating negotiations and calls on parties to do the same. A concerted effort by all parties to reach a final political agreement is crucial to address Sudan's current economic, political and humanitarian challenges.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Environmental Land Management Schemes

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ability of tenant farmers to benefit from Environmental Land Management Schemes.

Lord Benyon: We are designing the schemes to be simple, flexible, fair and accessible to as many types of farmers and land managers as possible, including tenant farmers. We are aiming to remove barriers to tenants entering schemes where possible, such as in the Sustainable Farming Incentive where tenants can enter without their landlord's explicit consent and tenants with annually renewing tenancy agreements can enter if they expect to have management control for the duration of their 3-year agreement. The independent Rock Review on the tenanted sector, led by Baroness Rock, noted that SFI’s agreement length and no penalty exits when management control of the land is lost unexpectedly have made the scheme more open to tenant farmers. The first round of Landscape Recovery was open to any land manager or groups of land managers, including tenant farmers, that could pull together a 500 to 5,000 hectare project of broadly contiguous land in England - around half of the 22 projects selected for round one involve tenant farmers. We are monitoring how these schemes are working for tenants and any impacts on tenants as part of the schemes' Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced on 1st December that rather than delivering the new Local Nature Recovery scheme as previously planned, we would build on the success of the existing Countryside Stewardship scheme to achieve the ambitious outcomes we had intended to deliver through Local Nature Recovery. This evolution was recommended by the Tenancy Working Group in the early conversations with Defra, with the group stating that many tenants were comfortable and familiar with CS. We are continuing to develop the Countryside Stewardship scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Landscape Recovery schemes through co-design with stakeholders, farmers, foresters, and other experts while considering the recommendations of the Rock Review to inform our decisions on tenanted land in these schemes.